Devices for withdrawing continuously cast strands from a mold are known in many different forms and designs. Such devices are used to withdraw the strand that has been produced from the mold continuously or discontinuously at a targeted speed. The cast strands themselves have a wide variety of cross-sectional shapes. For grasping a strand in the transport direction, rollers are placed on and pressed against the surface of the strand. In some cases, the rollers surfaces are profiled to better grasp the strand surface or have grooves that match the strand surface. These prior art devices for withdrawing continuously cast strands comprise a clamping unit in which driven rollers are movably mounted in chocks. For adjustment to a particular strand cross-section, the rollers mounted on the chocks are moved toward or away from each other using worm drives or piston-cylinder units. The support forces of the rollers on the strand surface are absorbed by spindles of the worm drive or piston-cylinder units and transmitted to the housing frame. For adjustment to different continuously cast cross-sections, such as, for example, when there is a change in product cross-section, extensive changeover measures are necessary to exchange the rollers mounted in the chocks for other rollers.
The clamping units of the prior art devices are designed to absorb the largest pressure forces that may occur and are therefore frequently oversized. The flexibility of the machine is limited, because the given kinematics permit only limited adjustment. Therefore, when the type of strand being produced is changed, time-consuming changeover adjustments of the clamping units are required.